Tag Archives: music apps

When is an iPhone accessory not an iPhone accessory? When it's a musical instrument.

At first glance, you may think you've got Artiphon's Instrument 1 all figured out. On the surface it looks like some sort of mobile take on Guitar Hero that runs on your smartphone or MP3 player instead of a video game system.

But as Mashable explains in their in-depth review, the Instrument One is most certainly more than just an “appcessory.” Instead, it's a real musical instrument in its own right. Scratch that, it's a real multi-instrument that uses your iPhone or iPod Touch “as its brain.”

Made of genuine hardwood and sporting high-end speakers, it doesn't really look like a guitar, or a keyboard, or any other instrument per se, but that's the whole point. As Artiphon founder Mike Butera told Mashable, the Instrument 1 intentionally stays away from trying to replicate any specific instrument so that musicians are free to use it any way they want. So you can play it like a violin if you want, but it's really up to you.

According to Mashable, “The Instrument 1 works with any core MIDI enabled app, but there are plans to release a companion app for more detailed / custom mappings in the future.”

We're not sure what to make of the Instrument 1 yet, or whether we'd actually play one. But we've got to give it credit for being one case where the iPhone accessory outshines the device.

Although the days when you might pack up your wallet and head to the CD store to purchase new music are gone, soon too the days of downloading music could be a thing of the past as well. In a time where seemingly everything is moving to the cloud, you have to bet that music will be one of the first industries to make the jump. Music can be easily stored and streamed through the cloud, and everyone wants access to their songs here and now, unwilling to wait for their songs to download or drive to the store to get a hold of them.

It looks as though a number of streaming music services are going to launch here fairly soon that should make for a fairly competitive industry. As things stand right now, Pandora is the undisputed leader in this market at a reasonable yearly price and a large selection of songs and playlists for their users to choose from. Other service including Zune Pass, Amazon Cloud Player and Napster have also gone with unlimited streaming plans for low monthly fees. It looks as though the future of this industry will be determined by the company that is able to capture the most mobile platforms.

The ability to stream music to your cell phone also means that you will be able to listen to virtually anything in your car as you are driving thanks to the various hook ups that these devices have. The price points of these various streaming services are all fairly in line with one another, with the most expensive being Zune Pass, which currently costs $15 per month. With many users moving toward streaming their music through the cloud, the streaming solution that positions themselves in a position to make it easiest on the end user stands to gain the most in the long run.